Time is something that none of us ever seem to have enough of.
Yet, with the help of some simple time management techniques, it
is possible to get a lot more done in less time, and thereby
enhance the quality of your life. As Tony Robbins puts it, time
management is really life management.

One excellent way to get more out of the time you have is to
actually do some time planning. For instance, you can spend 15-30
minutes every evening planning the next day. Doing so will enable
you to get far more done than you ever have bfore. You can
do the same thing every weekend to plan out the next week, and
determine all that you want to achieve within that time frame. At
the start of one month, or the end of another, you can sketch out
the coming month in similar fashion.

If you put all of these timescales into active practice, you will
truly propel yourself into the fast lane of achievers. Planning
is the key to getting to where you wish to go. How do you
actually use this time? Simply listing the things you want to get
done is a good start. If you do this, and then cross off items as
they are done, you will probably have doubled your productivity.

An even better way is to grade the activities in order of
importance. You can give a grade A to items that are both urgènt
and important: they absolutely must get done. Grade B items are
those that are important but not urgènt. Grade C items are things
that do need to be done, but are neither urgènt not important.
Grade D activities are those that would be nice to do, but are
neither urgènt, important, and do not even need to be done. Grade
E are all others that do not fit into the above.

An example of a grade A item is making sure your tax forms are
submitted when today is the deadline date! It is both important
and urgènt, and the consequences are severe if you do not do it.
Another grade A item might be fleeing to the hills in the face of
an imminent and massive tornado. Examples of grade B activities -
important but not urgènt – might be pruning the fruit tree so
that it produces good fruit this season, or listening to a
motivational tape seminar. Grade C items – neither important nor
urgènt – might be things like bùying a new dishwasher, or fixing
a loose shelf. Grade D items – nice to do, but not necessary -
are things like going to a movie, chatting to work colleagues, or
watching the World Series on TV.

Here is what you do with this system. Create your list, and then
make sure you get all grade A items done first. Do them ALL
before you move onto grade B. Do all of these before moving onto
grade C. Indeed, grade C items are the sort of thing you should
be looking to delegate to someone else, especially if you are in
business. Your time should be focused on high priority matters;
not things that really do not matter at all.

Grade D items get done once you have frèed up the time and
cleared your list of all grade A, B, and C items. Yet, here is
the interesting and important point. What grade activity do you
think most people spend the majority of their frèe time on?
Actually, it's grade D! If you think how much time people spend
watching TV, going to movies, playing computer games or whatever,
you will realize how true this is. In comparison, how many people
really focus on high priority activities, even at work? Isn't it
so much more interesting to chat to work colleagues than to
actually get the job at hand done? Don't we prefer to watch TV
rather than plan our goals and entire life direction? What grade
activity do YOU spend much of your time on? If the answer is
grade D, might there just be a correlation with the life results
you are getting?

Another way to manage time better is to do two things at once
wherever possible! For example, you could exercise AND listen to
instructional tapes at the same time. In this way, you improve
both body and mind and use the time twice over. Some people like
to subscribe to tape digests of top books, and thus get a lot of
their essential reading done in this way. If you do not feel like
listening whilst exercising, how about doing it in the car while
you are on the way to work? Another example might be travelling
in a coach or train, and doing work on your còmputer, or holding
an important conversation with someone on your mobile phone. Yes,
it is important to simply sit and watch the world go by at times,
and you should make for time for that too. However, if you
actually used some of these spare minutes and hours every so
often, think how much it adds ùp to in a year. I used to read
books on my train journey to and from work every day; a total
time of about an hour and twenty minutes or so. Whilst I would
get through a book or two in a week, it amazed me how many people
just sat there and stared blankly ahead of them.

Yet another way to create more time for yourself is to get up
earlier in the morning! If you get up just half an hour earlier
each day, you create for yourself and extra 3.5 hours per wèek,
14 hours per mònth, and 182 hours per yèar! It may be hard to do
at first, but it is definitely worth it.

In summary, there are many ways to revolutionize your use of
every hour of your day. What is needed now is the will to do it.
You can create a positive spiral for yourself by taking even one
of these ideas and working with it for a while. Imagine what
could happen if you used them all. You might just become
unstoppable!

Copyright 2002, Asoka Selvarajah. All Rights Reserved.

_______________________________________________________________

Asoka Selvarajah is a writer on personal growth and spirituality, and the author of "The 7 Golden Secrets To Knowing Your Higher Self". His work helps people achieve their full potential, deepen their understanding of mystical truth, and discover their soul's purpose. You can subscribe to his FREE ezine, and get his FREE ebook "Inner Light Outer Wealth" at:
http://www.aksworld.com/AspireToWisdom.htm?imk=Blog _______________________________________________________________

You have permission to reproduce this article in your ezine, website or offline publication as long as you do so in its entirety, and include both the copyright notice and the resource box at the bottom.

You can visit Asoka’s Mystic Visions site at: http://www.aksworld.com

Thinking forms virtually our sole basis for dealing with life. We
are attached to our thoughts. We think they are who we are.
Indeed, the whole of Western culture supports the mind's
pre-eminence, and thought as the sole mechanism for
organizing ourselves and our civilization.

 
However, these notions do not find huge support amongst the
mystical traditions. On the contrary, these ancient traditions
teach methods that seek to still the mind. "Stop Thinking!" is
often the injunction to the spiritual student. Why is this, if
thinking has served us so well, both individually and as a
society?

 
"…we still carry one problem with us: this mind that reasons so
intelligently is still basically confused. Therefore, every
'insight' is saturated by confusion. I am sorry to say it so
bluntly, but human understanding is confused. It is not
unmistaken wisdom, and it is not authentic until complete
enlightenment."

 
Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, abbot of Ka-Nying Shedrub
Ling monastery, Nepal.

 
Thinking, by itself, is subject to inherent flaws. The most
obvious is its high degree of subjectivity. Hardly anybody agrees
about anything. The world's problems are created around
differences of opinion – often regarding relatively minor issues
- around which vast intellectual and emotional edifices are
gradually built.

 
Are we actually in control of our thoughts at all? Meditators
become increasingly aware of their thought processes, and the
seemingly random nature in which thoughts move. Many have
concluded that it is not they who think, but rather thinking
"happens in them". The more one studies the process of thought,
the more it resembles the weather; a mysterious undirected
process, created by innumerable causes.

 
Thought is rarely accurate. Each person possesses an in-built
system of presuppositions, prejudices, societal conditioning,
religious background, and psychological complexes. Even the
extensiveness of our vocabulary plays an important role in
thinking. The precise mix is different for each person, but it
all critically affects the way the person thinks, and the kind of
thoughts that occur. Also, none of us possess total and perfect
information. Even if we did, the deep-seated biases within the
minds ensure that our conclusions will almost always be
imperfect.
 

Certain key human issues are necessarily relative. Morality is a
prime example. A person's moral framework derives from sources
such as family, society, peer gròups, religious training, and
even the kind of TV programs a person habitually watches. The
only way to make morals absolute and to cast them in stone (as
Moses did) is to appeal to a moral absolute such as God, who is
beyond dispute. However, even here, we can then debate as to
which type of God we choose to follow, which revelation from God
is true and which false, and so on. Consequently, morality
becomes dependent upon the society in which one is raised, and
the kind of religious undercurrent present.
 

To make it worse, our thought processes, flawed as they may be,
are being subtly manipulated by the government and media.
Communists and Islamic fundamentalists are not the only ones
subject to brainwashing. Those in the West are also told how to
think, and usually go along with it compliantly. For example, we
are currently being sold war as a remedy for violence, and
bombing as a method for achieving peace! Could there be anything
more ironic?
 

Indeed, the recent international situation highlights another of
the mind's inherent fallacies: the tendency to create polarities.
We like to think we are clear-minded enough to be able to judge
Good and Evil. In many cases, we CAN determine certain rules and
penalties that will enable a society to run efficiently, without
degenerating into anarchy. However, to ascribe categories of
"good" and "evil, "saint" and "sinner", as liberally as we do, is
almost always unwise. Given our own highly fallible thought
processes, who are we to judge? From a metaphysical context,
events may be occurring for all sorts of reasons of which we can
have no idea whatsoever. Indeed, was it not Jesus himself who
said "Judge not, that you be not judged"?
 

Polarizing tendencies seem to arise from our need for (a)
certainties we can feel comfortable with, and (b) generalizations
that enable us to make mental short-cuts to rapid solutions. We
need certainties because we want to understand the world we live
in, and exercise some degree of control within it. We also need
to generalize complex information. Otherwise, it would be too
hard for most us to deal with, and we could nèver reach a
conclusion, and hence achieve the certainty we desperately need.

 
Overall, such thought process leave us with the comfortable
feeling that we "understand" the issues, whereas the reality may
well be that we understand nothing at all! A good example is the
recent labelling of certain people as "Islamic Fundamentalists".
This is a convenient term that enables us to package such
individuals in the "evil, insane, brainwashed nutcase" category.
Thus, we don't have to seek to know anything further about them;
their history, their motivations, or their desires. After all, it
is a disease, is it not? These people are "evil", and belong to
an "axis of evil". What more is there to understand?

 
One disastrous result of polarized thinking is the sequence of
attack and counter-attack we see in all the trouble spots in the
world; whether it be Israel, Sep 11 2001, and formerly in
Northern Ireland. Such a pattern ensures only more of the same.
It is the politics of the playground – of five-year old children.
Sadly, many adults have not advanced much further than the
playground in their problem-solving capacities.

 
The above is not intènded as a support for any gròup, but rather
serves as an example of how simplistic we prefer to make our
thinking, in order to live in a world we can understand. Our
governments deal in bite-size explanations of highly complex
issues. The general public, the majority of whom know little
about history or foreign culture, swallow it whole without
question.

 
Reality is inherently complex. It is doubtful if anyone is
capable of completely comprehending it. For any event to occur,
there are a myriad contributory causes. The polarizing mind seeks
an easy explanation; often a single cause. In doing so, we do not
solve any problems we face, but rather perpetuate them.

 
However, thought processes can be redeemed by seeking ever deeper
communion with the source of Being; the higher self, the God
within, or whatever term you prefer. Realized Masters, who are in
perfect union with the Divine, have no need for conventional
thought, but perceive reality directly. This is a worthy goal for
each of us to aspire to, but it is a difficult one. It may hint
at why all spiritual traditions call upon the follower to enter
the silent gap between thoughts, and dwell ever more often in
that zone.

 
That is best done initially through meditation. Through steady
practice, this state of mind can follow us outside of the
meditation session and into the whole of life. By simply being
more mindful of our habitual thoughts, we may also become more
aware of the quality and direction of them. In that way, we can
catch ourselves engaging in tendencies that are unhelpful or
untrue.

 
In conclusion, our thoughts and opinions are rarely even a
remotely accurate view of reality. We need to be ever watchful to
not take ourselves or our opinions – or those of others,
particularly those in authority – too seriously. Instead, by
working continually within, and by studying in a spiritual
tradition, it will be possible ever more into our awareness, the
Higher Self, who can redeem, purify, and ultimately transcend,
the power of Thought.

Copyright Asoka Selvarajah 2004. All Rights Reserved.
_______________________________________________________________

Asoka Selvarajah is a writer on personal growth and spirituality, and the author of "The 7 Golden Secrets To Knowing Your Higher Self". His work helps people achieve their full potential, deepen their understanding of mystical truth, and discover their soul's purpose. You can subscribe to his FREE ezine, and get his FREE ebook "Inner Light Outer Wealth" at:
http://www.aksworld.com/AspireToWisdom.htm?imk=Blog _______________________________________________________________

You have permission to reproduce this article in your ezine, website or offline publication as long as you do so in its entirety, and include both the copyright notice and the resource box at the bottom.